Ice Luxury Hotels, Sweden

If we said the Explora Hotel on Easter Island was the most isolated luxury hotels in the world, we were wrong.

The IceHotel is the latest, craziest name on the Luxury Hotel circuit and it's 200 km north of the Arctic Circle in Sweden.

It's the world's first ice hotel and it's exactly what it says on the packet - a hotel with over 80 individually designed rooms, a bar, reception, and even a church, all made entirely out of blocks of ice taken from the nearby Torne River.

Colder than ice
You'll be wondering what the weather's like inside this baby. Rest assured, it's pretty damn icy, between 17 and 28 degrees Fahrenheit all the time. You can't even warm yourself up in the bar, because all the glasses are made of ice too. No warmth for the wicked.

And how about snuggling up at bedtime? Thankfully, although the bed's made of ice, they've thoughtfully covered it in reindeer skin and provided a thermal sleeping bag to keep your bits from freezing off. Here's the hotel's advice on going to bed:

"Dress in warm thermal underwear, put on a hat and slip into the cozy sleeping bag. Share the whole surrealistic ice-night with someone special. Let it be a night to remember."

No doubt.

Warming up in the morning
Staff come to thaw you out in the morning with a mug of hot lingonberry juice, whatever that is, and then stuff you in a sauna until you can move again. You'll spend your day ice fishing, moose tracking, or skating about on dog and reindeer sled trips. And in the evening, you can come back and stay in one of the hotel's separate heated cabins. By all accounts, one night in the IceHotel is enough of an experience for anyone.

Whose idea was it anyway?
Trust the French to have come up with this crazy idea. The IceHotel was born when French artist Jannot Derid held an exhibition in an igloo near the village of Jukkasjarvi, Sweden, the location of the current IceHotel. The town's limited accommodation was packed out and some guests had to spend the night inside the igloo. They must have been the trendy crowd, because the idea caught on.

If you're in Paris, not Lapland, you can have a similar (shorter) experience at the Kube Hotel, which has an Ice Bar along the same lines.

Nice Prices
A night in the freezer will set you back anything between 1120 and 5200 Swedish Kronors (US$175 to US$815) per person sharing a double room, including breakfast. The hotel only exists between December and April - in summer, the whole jamboree is dismantled and thrown back into the river.